Seated Man, 2012, 16" x 20", 40.6cm x 50.8cm, graphite on stretched canvas.
Sketch from TSA Friday night in pencil on a small canvas, 16" x 20", that I will finish as an ink painting.
Seated Man, in-progress, 24" x 30", 61cm x 76.2cm, mixed media on stretched canvas.
When I go to TSA non-instructional, drop-in lifepainting sessions, I usually spend the first 3 hours working on a larger painting; then I leave it to dry for the last hour while I sketch the model on a smaller canvas. At the top of this post you see the sketch that will become an ink painting. Below is the larger painting I did first. At TSA, I use thin layers of acrylics - they dry fast. To the left is what I completed at TSA on Friday night. At home, I finish the painting with oils - oil sticks, oil pastels, oil paints.
On the left is where the painting is today. It's still unfinished.
I'm considering putting a figure in black line only behind him, and some purple crocuses at his feet. To me, he seems a spring god, the spring rains and sap greens around him, a garden god who represents the fertility of the onrush of Nature's awakening after the long winter months.
Before the light was gone, on my walk through my neighbourhood this evening, I saw yellow tulips, small star-shaped blue flowers (which are? not phlox, or asters, but...?), yellow forsythias, and small magnolia trees just beginning to blossom. I may go by in the next few days with my sketchbook and see if adding a spring fauna to this painting will give it a fullness.